Disappointment: Autodesk awards 2007

[sanddrag]

I was reading on this page

There are some changes beginning this 2007 FIRST season. Below is some general information on the competition. Specific details and rules will be available in December 2007.

* The Autodesk Inventor Award winner will be announced at the FIRST Championship.
* The Autodesk Visualization Award winner will also be announced at the FIRST Championship. There will no longer be regional Autodesk Visualization Awards.
* For both competitions, entries will be submitted and available for public viewing on the Autodesk FIRSTbase website.
* Autodesk judges will review all entries and advance 5 finalists for each of the two awards.
* The 5 finalists will be posted to the Autodesk FIRSTbase website approximately two weeks before Championship where FIRST Robotics team members can view and vote for the final winner.
* Voting for the final winners in both categories will also continue on-site at the FIRST Championship.
* One winner for each award will be announced at the FIRST Championship. Please note that there will no longer be an Honorable Mention or Rookie winner.

Elimination of awards!?!? How does this show our animators that what they are doing is important? How does this get more teams to submit animations? No inventor awards at regionals!?!? I don't think we had them before, but we have always needed them, and to not get them again is a big disappointment. How does this take FIRST beyond the group of kids building robots in their garages? However much real engineers may play with cardboard, real engineering comes from the use of high level software, and the need for use of high level software. Not enough teams make use of this software provided to them. Do we really think they will if we say "this aspect of FIRST is not award worthy"? Did someone miss the I in FIRST? Or are there just some other compelling reasons I don't know about?

In addition, while I am very appreciative of Autodesk's continuing support of the program, I feel quite limited by limited number of licenses they provide. It is a hard thing for me to tell a student, "I know you love this software, but this student standing next to you has more of a need for it, so he can use it, and you can't." FIRST is expensive. I know we get more than we pay for, but with how much we pay, we try to make it as good of an experience for each student as possible. It is very challenging to not be able to allow every student the access to the tools (software) they need. And if you like the "level the playing field" argument, that may be applicable here as well.

Autodesk has no problem giving away free student licenses to any college student in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial design, gaming/animation, or civil engineering or architecture disciplines. Why not any high school FIRST student? Why only 10? Why only 30 day trials? Build season is ~6 weeks long. And we like to be productive pre and post season too.

I love the software. I promote it like I work for them. But the lack of awards, and the minimal number of licenses is quite disappointing.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Autodesk has no problem giving away free student licenses to any college student in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial design, gaming/animation, or civil engineering or architecture disciplines. Why not any high school FIRST student? Why only 10? Why only 30 day trials? Build season is ~6 weeks long. And we like to be productive pre and post season too.

To be clear, they offer a total of 10 limited licences for Inventor 11, and 5 for Max, which when installed, function as 30 day trials until activated, and after that, become one-year trials. The students.autodesk.com system (where the licences are permanent, free and for educational use only) is far more useful—but you need university student mentors to take advantage of it.

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Elimination of awards!?!? How does this show our animators that what they are doing is important? How does this get more teams to submit animations? No inventor awards at regionals!?!? I don't think we had them before, but we have always needed them, and to not get them again is a big disappointment.

If I had to hazard a guess, this might have to do with the lack of consistency in the existing voting process. It looks like they want to use a core group of experts to evaluate all entries on a level basis, rather than try to judge each regional's winner separately. Note also that participation in the AVA and AIA are not especially high—many teams have other priorities, and this leads to regionals where these awards are bestowed upon mediocre entries, for lack of any signficant competition.

[FourPenguins]

I really have to agree on the limited liscences. We need at least 5 in school, which leaves only five for at-home use. It leaves us pretty crippled, really. I keep bothering Mr. McGowan to get us a few more liscences, but it's expensive software...

[SamC]

I wish they would give a few more licenses of each (maybe like 15 of each? ), or at least have a deal where you get X amount of licenses donated but if you need/want more it is only like $100-$200 for each other license.(or like 10 extra's for $750)

[Koko Ed]

Every year there is some sort of change and every year it seems more inane than the last one.
This is totally lame.

[BuddyB309]

I have worked so hard to pass down my knowledge of animation down to incoming freshman. Now your telling me that all the work that will be done for the AVA entry is for nothing?

This kills a part of the FIRST community that draws in different kinds of people. Without regional competition for animation, none of the animators from other teams will see the work of others. There will be no knowledge exchange, and most of all there will be no motivation to submit an entry. I stayed in FIRST because of the AVA, I helped the team draw in people to FIRST and some join because they have an interest in animation but still learn about engineering. I'm very sure that the number of entries for the AVA will drop dramatically this year.

I am very upset at the fact that this is being done. I always had the feeling that winning at a regional level was greater than winning National because it was graded by peers who know exactly what you did to make your entry. Winning nationals seems more like a wild stab in the dark. I'm sure that the attendance at the Auto-desk booth is going to be very low this year.

[mehul]

^ i think that the fact of eliminating regional competition for animation will lower the number of entries even more since not all the teams even make it to nations ( robotics wise) to see their animation, this would be my third year doing it and both years, my animation made it to nationals but my team never went there and if this year, they cut the regional comp, it would really decrease my motive to create an animation im not even going to see with my own eyes in a competion! especially all those sleepless nights doing animation

[Alex Burman]

This is really weird because first still has it under the 2007 regional award:
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...Reg_Awards.pdf
Its really a shame that this is happening.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Alex Burman

This is really weird because first still has it under the 2007 regional award:
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...Reg_Awards.pdf
Its really a shame that this is happening.

Interesting. Perhaps all hope is not lost. We'll see.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Interesting. Perhaps all hope is not lost. We'll see.

Maybe they're encouraging the animators to revolt and take over the award for themselves (hint hint)!

[AznPrincess3089]

That's crazy. 1070 has just decided to do animation and this just made the competition even harsher.

[Sgraff_SRHS06]

But for the teams going to Championships and dabbling in animations, this is actually a nice bonus (the fact that the animation competition will be small).

But hey, what am I to say?

[BuddyB309]

here is something we can do. Some one get contact with someone who is high up in FIRST and ask them what is going on.

We can turn this around if every team writes to FIRST about how this decision will negatively effect their team. but keep in mind that you are representing your team in these letters.

I always find the Sit-and-wait approach never works out.

[AznPrincess3089]

I'd be happy to write but who to? I know myself and everyone else doing animation invested a lot of time into this so we should really work together and try to do something about it.

[RoboJedi75]

My main question is why?

Having regional awards was certainly better, but I can live with only having one award. I would really like to know why the regional awards were cut.

And Burman, the FIRST website no longer lists the award.
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...Reg_Awards.pdf

I'm all for contacting whoever as a group.